It's Very S.F. To Be Skeptical On Stadium

Published 4:00 am, Monday, May 19, 1997

Your yes vote on Props D and F on June 3 buys me a cozy little working space in the cushy press box of the 49ers' new stadium, with hot and cold running beverages and catered Sunday buffet.

And yet! Before twisting your arm, I would like to salute you fence-straddlers, "undecideds" and hard-question askers.

I'm seeing it again: San Francisco really is hipper and smarter than other cities. Some of the most tragic business deals cut over the last couple decades have been sports temples paid for by taxpayers and handed over to obese-cat team owners.

The lust for big-time-sports prestige has turned savvy politicians into babbling bumpkins and borderline criminals.

San Francisco drives a harder bargain. San Francisco does more than kick the tires.

San Francisco refused to build a free baseball stadium for rich-guy Bob Lurie, then owner of the Giants. The City drove Lurie out of baseball and will soon have a new ballpark financed almost entirely by the team.

This is news. This is man-bites-dog. This is a city with a brain and a backbone.

It may be a Willie city, but it's not a willy-nilly city.

And so it is that mayor Willie Brown and the 49ers are having trouble selling the project they say we would be fools to reject.

What they should consider mentioning is that the city's $100 million investment would be a gamble. The success of the mall is no sure thing. As the opposing forces point out: Ever hear of the Edsel and New Coke?

"It's a huge leap to compare San Francisco with Ontario," notes Peter Moylan, a local historian and tour guide, referring to the Southern California city where a similar mall is a roaring success. (Moylan, incidentally, is undecided on the 49ers' project.)

Brown insists that the worst-case scenario is as follows: Mall flops, city inherits mall.

But what does a city do with a massive, white-elephant mall? Besides spend tons of money to fix, convert or demolish it.

I realize Brown is accentuating the positive, but he should acknowledge what every sports fan and pony player knows: There's nothing riskier than a sure thing.

Also, the 49ers are dropping heavy hints that this vote is do-or-die. Hand over the $100 mil now or kiss your team goodbye.

The Giants didn't give up that easily, and there's a good chance the 49ers would take another swing at it with a modified proposal.

What's important now, though, is to push aside the fibs and veiled threats and make this call: Is keeping the 49ers, on balance, good or bad for San Francisco?

I say good. And you don't have to be a 49ers fan to like the deal, just as you don't have to be an opera buff or bicyclist to appreciate how a community benefits from a diversity of arts and entertainment.

And there's the money. Brown points out that Cleveland lost the NFL Browns because the city and county wouldn't help build a stadium. Now they're building a $300 million stadium in hopes of luring an NFL expansion team, and meanwhile Cleveland loses at least $150 mil a year by not having pro football.

With Willie World, the mall complicates the equation. My initial reaction was: Why the damn shopping mall? It increases the risk of the project, muddies the picture. Just build a stadium.

Incidentally, that was also the 49ers' initial reaction. Brown, as he says jokingly, "extorted" the 49ers' support for the mall.

I have flip-flopped. I think the mall is the best half of the project. If it works, Bayview-Hunters Point is revitalized and the entire city is better, and richer.

Ten thousand new jobs, that's a big deal.

Willie World is a gamble, but San Francisco was built on a gamble -- gold in them thar hills -- and grew great and wonderful by taking reasonable risks.

I'm sure there was valid opposition to the Golden Gate Bridge. Not to equate the world's coolest bridge with a shopping mall, but it's the principle: Most worthwhile projects involve risk, a leap of faith.

There's a huge difference between a gamble and a giveaway, and from here, Willie World looks like the former.

If you wanted a cautious guy, you voted the wrong man into office. Brown is thinking big. For instance, he has banned polo playing -- and future Footstocks -- on the Golden Gate Park polo fields, because he wants to preserve the fields for soccer. Why? If Brown can cultivate a strong soccer subculture here, big-time soccer could be a powerful tenant in the new stadium.

The meek shall inherit the earth, but until they do, they'll live in tepid, vapid cities, where great dreams and blueprints gather dust.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.